


Something To Call My Own

by myownremedy



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemon, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Poetry, M/M, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 12:31:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/622160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myownremedy/pseuds/myownremedy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is about Sean. This is about Mark. This is, most importantly, about Eduardo. But mostly, it’s about how Sean ruined Eduardo’s life, and how he tries to fix it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something To Call My Own

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Skinandpit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skinandpit/gifts).



> This is very Siken inspired; originally inspired by that jacket graphic floating around and then his wishbone poem. Ok. Sean’s daemon is a female Eyelash Pit Viper, name unknown, Eduardo’s daemon is a female Maned Wolf named Meera and Mark’s daemon is a Common Kingfisher named Nico whose sex is unknown! Dustin’s daemon is a Magpie named Marlo and Chris has a weasel daemon named Sorrel.  
> Hope you like it <3  
> Disclaimer: y'all gay, y'all fictional, daemons fictional, y'all not mine, poetry not mine, ok
> 
> edit (4-13-15): this is a transformative work. I make no money off of it. I do not own what inspired this work (The Social Network, Richard Siken's poetry, His Dark Materials book series), but I do own this work itself and hold full copyright over it. Thank you.

“I swear, I end up feeling empty, like you’ve taken something out of me, and I have to search

          my body for the scars, thinking

_Did he find that one last tender place to sink his teeth in?”_

\- Richard Siken, Wishbone

 

When the doorbell rings, it is Meera that ambles over to the door and braces herself on her hind legs, trying and failing to peer out of the peephole.

Eduardo is already on his way; he’s expecting a package; and then Meera growls and her mane goes on end, like there’s something dangerous out there, so he stops.

She’s upset – he’s upset, too, but he doesn’t know why because Meera won’t tell him, she’s too busy shaking and growling, fear and anger and – hatred? Do they hate anyone? – flashing through her, crashing into him, so he staggers, grips the edge of the table he’s next too.

Then: “Saverin? Saverin, I know you’re in there. Open up!”

 

 _Sean Parker_.

Eduardo’s immediate reaction is to decide he won’t open up, that he’ll lock the door, and then he remembers how Sean flinched away from him on the night – on that night, when it was hot and bright and the flush of his anger and Meera’s weight against his thigh was what kept him sane, what was kept him from crying.

“Eduardo,” he hears Sean say, imploringly, through the door.

Meera comes to him, because he needs her; he kneels, shakily, and she winds herself around him and looks up at him adoringly, and he kisses the side of her slim black muzzle and scratches behind her oversized ears, completely overwhelmed.

“What do we do?” He whispers to her. As if she is not him, as if she will have an idea, a solution.

She licks the side of his hand but does not answer.

Outside the door, Sean calls: “Come on, Saverin. Man up. Open the door.”

 

Eduardo does open the door, after a minute, not because Sean insulted him but because he wants Sean to leave him alone, wants this done with, and can’t help but wonder why Sean is here.

“Sean,” he says in order to fill the tense silence; Sean’s eyes are bright and he nods at Eduardo, high energy, brisk; but he keeps a hand on his snake daemon, which has wound herself around Sean’s neck, and Eduardo can see Sean is nervous, has darting eyes that take in Eduardo and Meera and then dart to find any exits, any escape routes. There’s something tucked under one arm and he’s dressed like a college student, but he’s the same, and it hurts.

“Why are you here?” Eduardo demands, because Sean Parker is not someone he ever wants to see again, and a Sean Parker on his doorstep is unthinkable, is unwelcome.

Sean doesn’t answer, takes a step forward and for a minute Eduardo thinks about punching him – instead he steps back, lets Sean walk into his house, shuts the door behind him unthinkingly.

 

“Sean.” Eduardo tries to sink iron into his voice, wonders why he stepped aside, why he let Sean is. “Why are you here?”

Sean sits down on the couch and produces the thing he’s been carrying – a black north face fleece.

“This,” Sean says, with an air of grand reveal-ment, “is why I’m here.”

“A fleece.”

“Not ‘a fleece.’ _Your_ fleece.”

“Mine?” Eduardo regards it more closely, sifts through his memories and realizes that yes, he did have a fleece like that – he lost it around his move to New York.

“I had that fleece years ago,” Eduardo hates how his voice falters, hesitates; Meera leans against his thigh, brown eyes trained on Sean, and this gives him strength. “How did you find it? Where did you find it?”

But he knows the answer before Sean says it, feels it in the swooping of his gut and Meera’s sharp yip of surprise, of realization.

“Mark. Mark had it.”

 

Mark’s name, Mark’s image in his memory – Mark being _Mark_ has the tendency to make Eduardo cold and still with rage and with a swirling, crystallizing fog of… _something_ , things that are too painful to feel. He often cowers from this fog, becomes undone by it, so he avoids thinking about Mark, has ever since the depositions.

Sean, sitting in his living room, holding the fleece that Mark has been wearing all these years – that makes something in Eduardo break and fall, cracking at his feet.

He can see, very clearly, very suddenly, Mark sitting across from him at the depositions and shaking his head, eyes cold, mouth sullen – Eduardo had focused on that at the time, had missed the fleece he was wearing, the fleece Eduardo had been missing for two or three years.

The fleece that Sean is clutching now.

Eduardo realizes Sean is watching him, that his snake daemon is tasting the air with her delicate tongue and he pulls himself together, tries to reassemble himself. Meera growls once, low, warning Sean – or him – but of what, he doesn’t know.

“Have you come to return this?” Is all Eduardo can bring himself to ask, is all he can think of. “Did – Did Mark send you?”

“No,” Sean suddenly seems unsure, shifts on the couch and regards his palms for a minute in a gesture that speaks of humility, of uncertainty. “Mark…Mark doesn’t know I’m here.” He glances at the fleece. “I’m sure he’s missing this, actually. Probably looking everywhere for it.”

Eduardo doesn’t know what to say to that.

“He’s a billionaire,” Meera says, to his surprise; she rarely speaks, is shy by nature. “He can buy another one. Besides, it’s ours.”

Eduardo disagrees; the fleece is Mark’s now, and he doesn’t want it, doesn’t want anything from Mark, anything to do with Mark.

In his bank account, six hundred million dollars sits there guilty and he feels himself flush as he thinks of it.

“Yes,” Sean agrees, slow and uncertain, but Eduardo can see the gears turning in his head, can see him adjusting to the fact that Eduardo’s daemon just spoke to him directly in her throaty, direct voice. “It’s yours. But I thought you might be curious as to why Mark would miss it.”

Because it’s not like Mark to miss clothing, because he doesn’t care, except he’s particular about what he’ll wear, so he does care and he does miss it, and these are the parts of Mark that make no sense and occasionally still keep Eduardo up at night, because he’s not sure if Mark doesn’t care and that’s why he refuses to dress himself befitting a wealthy business owner, or if he cares so much that he refuses to wear anything else but ratty hoodies and cargo shorts.

And, of course, those fuck you flip-flops.

“Mark is none of our concern,” Meera says, speaking for them – and Eduardo is grateful, is too caught up in his memories, in his confusion, in the fog to argue with Sean. “In fact, we’re not allowed contact with him.” She pauses, mane going erect and stands up straight, stiff legged, ready to pounce. “I suggest you leave.”

“He misses you,” Sean says bluntly, eyes on Eduardo, ignoring Meera as best as one can ignore a three and a half foot tall wolf that looks like a fox. “He hasn’t been the same since the depositions. He’s depressed. He’s stopped eating, stopped going out.”

“Mark never went out,” Eduardo snaps.

“Some days he can’t even code,” Sean continues on, like he hasn’t been interrupted.

 _Some days he can’t even code._ Like this is supposed to mean something, like Eduardo is supposed to care that his absence is inconveniencing Mark so that the company is suffering.

“He’s sorry, Eduardo,” Sean says, eyes still on his. “He fucked up, and he’s sorry, and he misses you.”

“Last time I checked,” Eduardo says, softly, clearly, “he couldn’t wait to get rid of me.” The words sink like stones. “Please get out of my apartment.”

\---

Sean leaves the fleece, folded on Eduardo’s couch and after he is gone, Eduardo regards it and feels Mark in it, feels like Mark is sitting on his couch and watching him, his daemon on his shoulder.

He remembers, vividly, when Mark’s daemon – a kingfisher, Mark had explained – had landed on Meera’s muzzle, remembers the flood of warmth that had shocked him, remembers how he looked at Mark to see if he felt that too, remembers how blank Mark’s face was.

“Do you think it’s true?” He asks Meera, knows she knows what he means but he has to say it out loud or it’s not real. “Do you think he misses us?”

“Does it matter?” Is what she asks, on the offensive, always; he curls a hand into her mane and thinks about that, sinks onto the floor beside her.

She inhales, nostrils going wide, muzzle pointing at the fleece, and then she wilts, moves until she’s pressing her muzzle against Eduardo’s chest, like she cannot bear the sight of the fleece, there on the couch.

“It smells like him,” she says softly, and neither of them knows what to say to that.

\---

Sean is there the next morning, knocking on the door and this time Eduardo is half expecting him, opens the door and crosses his arms over his chest, squeezes his nails deep into his palms and tries not to think of the past.

He doesn’t say anything this time, waits for Sean to say something – but it is Sean’s daemon that speaks.

“We’re worried about Mark. We wouldn’t bother you, otherwise.”

Eduardo finds himself peering at her in disbelief – disbelief over the fact she’s speaking directly to him, disbelief at her words, he’s not sure which. He doesn’t know her name, knows Sean has kept it from the media and everyone else with his trademark paranoia, heard him once saying _never give away the name of your soul or they’ll catch you_. Eduardo had wondered who ‘they’ were.

“Madam,” Eduardo says, because it feels rude to not address her by some sort of name, “I find that very hard to believe.”

He doesn’t know what he means about that, has been going in circles with his thoughts; he thinks Sean is a bully and a thief and coward but wonders, now, if he would go out of his way to bother Eduardo now that Eduardo was no longer a threat. Does he believe Sean is worried about Mark? No. Sean is worried about the company, almost certainly – but there’s a softness to him, a desperation in his eyes, that makes all of Eduardo’s excuses fall flat.

“I know you want me to leave,” Sean says, and his voice is jarring, doesn’t belong in Singapore with Eduardo and Meera and the strange strong-smooth city, “but I won’t, not unless you come with me.” His eyes are so earnest; Eduardo tries to remember the dinner in New York, the slick way Sean had bled enthusiasm all over their meal and how Meera’s lips had curled into a snarl beneath the table.

Sean was a snake, slippery, clever, cruel.

But the way he rests a hand on the body of his daemon, like he’s asking for strength, like he’s unsure, makes Eduardo trust him, trust his story.

“I didn’t know you cared about Mark,” the words taste like acid and Sean pulls something that looks like a frown wrapped in an apology.

“Eduardo –”

“No,” because Sean doesn’t get to apologize, doesn’t get to come and say _Mark misses you_ when Eduardo has spent so long trying to forget, but forgetting takes so long.

Sean understands, falls silent.

“I’ll come to Palo Alto,” even though he had made the decision already, he’s half surprised by the words coming out of his mouth. “I don’t think it will help, but I’ll come.”

“It will help.” Sean says.

“I want you to leave me alone,” Eduardo tells him, bluntly. “You ruined my life.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Sean retorts. There’s no front, just a tired sort of acceptance. “I’m trying to fix it.”

 

\---

 

They sit on a plane in First Class, Meera lying down by Eduardo’s feet and Sean’s daemon curled around his neck. Sean is tapping his armrest, flirting with the flight attendants and cracking jokes with the other passengers. Eduardo tries to ignore him, stares vainly out the window until he’s peering into blackness sliced unevenly by city lights.

The hours drip on and Sean seems to run out of steam, slips into a doze and Eduardo just sits there, unable to sleep with Sean beside him. Meera rests her head on his foot and he tries to breathe deeply and think of nothing. It doesn’t work.

Mark’s – his – fleece is in his carry on and that’s all Eduardo can think of, because it’s worn around the wrists and elbows, threads are poking out of the seams and even Eduardo can smell Mark on it.

That had hurt, that had made him shove it into his bag.

At the very least, he can give it back to Mark, can get rid of every reminder of him in his life until there’s nothing left.

The thought doesn’t fill him with hope as it once had; instead he feels tired and very, very old.

 

Sean stirs sometime later and regards Eduardo intensely enough that Eduardo turns to look at him, feels compelled to say something.

“What?”

“Why did you come with me?” It’s a counter-intuitive question because Sean had harassed him into doing this, but only now is he stopping to think.

“I…don’t know,” which isn’t strictly true but it’s the best answer he has. Sean seems to understand, keeps looking at him and sort of nods.

“Why didn’t you come out to Palo Alto?” and _wow_ , Eduardo has a list of things he doesn’t want to talk about with Sean and that’s probably number one. He struggles to curb the wave of rage that washes over him. From the floor, Meera growls.

“I didn’t realize it was right thing to do, at the time,” he says when he has himself under control, and yes he knows, now, that he should have – but hindsight is 20/20, after all. “I was trying to do my best. But my best wasn’t what the company needed.”

 _My best wasn’t good enough_.

He sloughs the bitterness off of his face with difficulty, knowing Sean will have seen it. Sean says nothing.

“I wasn’t – I was trying, in New York, to get investors. I thought ads were the right way to go. I see that I was mistaken now. I get it. You don’t have to explain that to me.” Eduardo doesn’t know why he keeps talking but the words are flooding out, and then to his surprise, Sean raises his eyebrows.

“I wasn’t.” Sean says. “This isn’t about that.”

“Then what is it about?” Eduardo feels himself flush, hot. “Mark? What, are you two best friends now?”

“No,” Sean says and Eduardo thinks that this the most stripped down he’s ever seen Sean, honest and calm and open. There’s no flash, no charm, no lies; just Sean regarding him with interest, his daemon watching as well. “But I worry about him. Everyone worries about him, now. He’s depressed, Eduardo.”

“I don’t see why,” because Eduardo isn’t and he was the one that was hurt, he was the one that suffered. Mark has no right to be depressed, and Sean has no right to tell him this.

It’s not fair.

 

“I don’t think seeing me will help,” Eduardo says, more to break the silence between them than anything. Sean just shrugs.

“You think what you like,” his tone isn’t patronizing but Eduardo bristles all the same. “You’re still here.”

And that’s the truth, and that’s when Eduardo sort of relaxes, because he’s still here.

Because what’s hanging between them is the truth: _you still care_.

Sean cares, cares enough to fly all the way to Singapore and get Eduardo. Eduardo cares, enough to listen to him, to sit next to him on a flight to California.

It’s a weak sort of fellowship but it’s enough, to sit there and know that they’re united in helping Mark, especially when he won’t help himself.

 

“You’re not so bad,” Eduardo says after a minute, trying to keep his voice casual but it still comes out as grudging. Sean flashes a bright smile, but Eduardo notices relief in his blue eyes.

He doesn’t say anything back. Eduardo’s glad. It would have ruined everything (he refuses to think of this as a _moment_ ).

 

\---

 

“You can’t get out of this one, Henry, you can’t get it out of me, and with this bullet

lodged in my chest, covered with your name, I will turn myself into a gun, because

           it’s all I have,

because I’m hungry and hollow and just want something to call my own. I’ll be your

slaughterhouse, your killing floor, your morgue and final resting, walking around with this

          bullet inside me

‘cause I couldn’t make you love me and I’m tired of pulling your teeth…”

\- Richard Siken, _Wishbone_

 

 

Eduardo allows himself to relax, even falls asleep. It’s not comfortable and he’s careful not to let himself sprawl, but it’s enough to tide him over. He’s not too cranky when they disembark, Meera trotting tiredly at his side. Sean follows, directs him to their baggage claim – Eduardo hasn’t been to this airport in years. He avoids California if he can help it.

To his surprise, Chris and Dustin are waiting for them. They look tired, circles under both their eyes and movements strained, and Eduardo begins to believe that maybe something _is_ wrong.

Dustin’s hair is messed up and Chris’s shirt is wrinkled, but suddenly there’s no distance, no lawsuit because there’s a panic working its way through Eduardo’s veins; if they look this tired, this stressed, then something is really wrong.

It occurs to him that perhaps he was a last resort instead of a first one.

“Wardo,” Dustin says, pulling him into a hug. Eduardo allows this, wraps an arm around Dustin and clasps Chris’s hand at the same time.

Dustin’s daemon, a magpie named Marlo, is perched on his shoulder and regards Eduardo with bright, dark eyes. When he and Dustin step apart she flutters down to greet Meera, who woofs softly at her.

Sorrel, Chris’s weasel daemon, is slung around his neck but chirps in greeting. It’s all very warm, this reunion, and it makes Eduardo uncomfortable. Meera presses against his hip and he pets her absently, wondering how to break the silence.

“You came,” Chris observes, like he’s surprised.

Eduardo thinks about saying _yes_ or _it’s Mark_ or _it was the only way to get Sean to leave me alone_ but instead he shrugs.

They don’t talk after that, though Dustin and Chris trade looks with each other and then Sean. Eduardo pretends not to notice, concentrates on grabbing his luggage. They go to Chris’s car, head right to the Facebook office – there’s no pretense that this is a social visit.

It’s about Mark.

It’s always about Mark.

 

\---

 

“Do you want it? Do you want anything I have? Will you throw me to the ground

like you mean it, reach inside and wrestle it out with your bare hands?

          If you love me, Henry, you don’t love me in a way I understand.”

\- Richard Siken, _Wishbone_

 

“He’s here?” Eduardo asks, peering out of the window. Sean and he are sharing the back seat, and Meera is half in his lap and half in the middle, also looking out the window. “I thought he wasn’t coding anymore?”

“He still comes to work,” Dustin answers as Chris parks the car. “He likes to feel useful, I think.” Eduardo can understand that.

 

He asks Chris to pop the trunk after a moment, pulls out the fleece and regards it. It’s night in California and it’s cool, almost brisk outside. Without knowing why, he shrugs off his suit jacket and pulls on the fleece instead. Mark’s scent envelops him and he shuts his eyes. Meera whines.

“Where’s his office?” He asks after a moment. His voice is rough, like a growl and he can feel the tension rise among the others. It’s Sean that answers, gives him directions. They don’t follow him when he takes off.

The hallways are empty, the lights bright. It’s late enough that most people are getting ready to go home or are already gone. Eduardo isn’t really surprised that Mark is still here.

It’s almost like nothing is changed.

 

He hears Mark before he sees him, because Mark is deep in conversation with Nico, something about CSS script and better servers. Eduardo doesn’t wait, doesn’t knock, just opens the door and stands there.

Nico notices him first, utters a harsh cry and lands on Mark’s shoulder. Mark swivels in his chair to face him, and it’s clear that Wardo is not who he is expecting. His face goes blank.

Eduardo suddenly realizes that’s the equivalent of looking slapped for Mark. He’s glad, glad that his presence has slapped Mark in the face.

“Hi,” he says after a minute.

Nico flutters onto Mark’s knee and Eduardo watches, absently, the way Mark’s fingers curl around his daemon, like he’s clutching Nico and trying to keep Nico safe.

When it’s clear that Mark isn’t going to say anything, Eduardo steps inside and shuts the door. Meera is watching Mark like he’s her prey; Eduardo would tell her to stop, but he feels the same way.

“I’m here,” he announces after a minute, “because everyone is worried about you.”

Mark scowls.

“It seems like they have reason to be,” Eduardo continues, “since apparently you can’t even code anymore and you aren’t sleeping or eating and you obsessively wear this –” he plucks at the fleece “– all the time.”

Mark’s head comes up, chin jutting out, like a challenge. Eduardo wonders why he feels fond and exasperated instead of annoyed. He wonders why it’s so easy to fall back into this mode with Mark.

“How did you get that?” Mark asks finally.

“It is _mine_ ,” Eduardo says. “Sean brought it to me. In Singapore. He’s that worried about you.”

“Sean can fuck off,” Mark snaps and oh, what Eduardo would have given to hear that before! Now he just shrugs.

“Sean’s not so bad, I guess,” he says.

“Why are you here, Wardo?” Mark says, fast, rushed, and his face is doing something complicated, something that makes Eduardo want to touch him.

“You tell me,” this is it, the last leap, because he realized why came as soon as he saw Mark, hunched in his chair, but he needs to hear it from Mark.

He needs to know that Mark has changed enough to talk to him, to be honest. “Wardo,” Mark says, quietly, desperately, “I…I need you.”

Eduardo exhales, crosses the room to tug Mark into a hug. Mark doesn’t resist, clutches desperately at him, clawing at his fleece, face hot against Eduardo’s neck.

 

_(Eduardo remembers, distantly, the first time he kissed Mark, when he was drunk and the site had gone live, and the feel of Nico’s feathers beneath his fingers, remembers the feeling of Mark’s hands on Meera’s fur.)_

“Please don’t leave,” Mark mumbles. Eduardo shakes his head – _never_ – he tells Mark mentally, and maybe Mark hears, because Nico lands on Eduardo’s shoulder and Meera presses herself against Mark’s leg.

 

From outside the office, they hear the muffled sound of cheering. They ignore it. There will be time, later, to deal with their friends. For now, they are content to hold each other, inhaling each other’s scent.

It is enough.

**Author's Note:**

> visit me on [tumblr!](http://marnz.tumblr.com/) prompts welcome.


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